


The Wicker Girl (Work in Progress)

by EdwardHyde10



Category: Sidneyverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 20:33:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28516464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EdwardHyde10/pseuds/EdwardHyde10
Kudos: 13





	The Wicker Girl (Work in Progress)

The Wicker Girl  
By   
Edward Hyde

“Wow, it’s finished!” Lucy gaped up at the fifteen-foot high wooden effigy. “Isn’t it cool?”

“I don’t know.” Her best friend Anna frowned a little. “I thought it was going to be bigger?” 

“It’s plenty big enough!” laughed Lucy. “Anyway, if they made it much bigger, not only would the audience have to stay way further back in case it collapsed so they wouldn’t be able to see or hear anything interesting anyway but it would take way more than five of us to fill it!” 

“True!” Anna agreed with a chuckle. “Guess we’d better get to class, don’t want to be late on our last day!” 

“I wouldn’t worry!” Lucy stuck out her tongue. “What are they gonna do? Give us detention?” 

Following the success the small fishing village had enjoyed after reinstating its ancient custom of crushing a sacrificial victim between two large slabs of rock, allowing her blood to run into the sea as a thank you for the bounty it provided, its annual re-enactment becoming a huge tourist draw and eventually becoming the main pillar of the village’s economy, many other rural communities had sought to revive or even invent similar local customs to attract visitors and Summerisle was no exception. 

A small island off the coast of Scotland, Summerisle and its community was primarily known for its exports of apples and honey, along with cider and mead of course, but the population was growing and with employment opportunities limited to agriculture, public services and a few family-run shops and businesses, a new source of revenue was needed to maintain the island’s prosperity and so it was to tourism that the people of Summerisle now looked. 

Although long dismissed as Roman propaganda, an account from a visitor claiming to have witnessed a ceremony in which dozens of men, women and children were burned alive inside a giant wicker figure to promote a good harvest served as the inspiration. Of course to burn so many in what was, after all, little more than a show would be impractical, especially since the legality of such acts relied on a liberal interpretation of girl-meat laws, but the local artist tasked with creating the figure had proposed one in which five girls could be contained to be burned alive for the entertainment of the tourists and this proposal had been readily accepted. 

To accompany the sacrifice, another five girls would be roasted on spits arranged over coal-pits arranged like spokes of a wheels, each one tapered at the end like the blade of a sword so as to resemble a five-pointed star. In the middle of this “wheel” would be a cauldron in which five more girls would cook. The number of girls offered in this way, fifteen in total, was all part of the symbology of the event as multiples of the sacred numbers five and three. 

The two friends hurried through the school gates along with the two hundred or so other children, aged between five and sixteen, who made up the only school on Summerisle. Lucy and Anna were both thirteen and made up two fifths of the sacrificial offering who would end their lives inside the wooden figure they had just been admiring. 

“Hey, right leg!” Emma caught up with Anna as she approached the door to her classroom, Lucy already inside and sat at her desk chatting to Melody who would be occupying the figure’s left leg.

“Hi left arm!” Anna giggled and gave her friend a hug as they walked in together. The very next day, the girls would be sealed, naked, into their respective limbs of the figure, with Lucy occupying the right arm and all reaching out to hold onto Samantha from the year above who would be in the middle, seated on a kind of throne incorporated into the design. From there she would reach out and hold hands with the girls in the arms while the girls in the legs hugged hers. 

“Settle down class! Settle down!” Miss Archer called out as she came into the room and set her stack of folders down on her desk. “I know that tomorrow is a big day and that everyone’s excited but we still have a day of lessons to get through before the holiday.” 

All the teachers knew that getting any of the children to pay attention to their classes that day was a battle already lost but they were professionally obligated to at least make a show of continuing as normal. In truth, they were every bit as excited as their pupils. Everyone on the island had been watching the preparations eagerly and tourists had been arriving since the middle of the week, quickly filling up every inn, guest house and camp site available on the island. Special extra ferries had been laid on for the weekend to bring over the many hundreds more waiting on the mainland.

It was a very small community, the population only a little over a thousand in total, and all the girls who would die the next day, of course, attended the school. It came as little surprise to anyone when, following the announcement in assembly that the fifteen girls would be selected at the end of the day and that anyone wishing to volunteer should come to the school hall following the end of the school day at half past three that every single girl in the school had shown up, all one hundred and twenty three of them. 

Since the entire day was, after all, about spectacle, it was not much of a surprise that the more conventionally attractive girls found themselves shortlisted for all the roles. Of course different ages and body-types were more suited to the different cooking methods with the five girls for the pot being the youngest. Since it was important that the girls remain visibly willing throughout and not get scared or start crying and begging to be taken out once the cooking grew painful, it was decided not to pick the very youngest girls in the school but to go for eight and nine year olds. In order to maximise the available meat to feed all the visitors, the spits would be occupied by girls of fifteen and sixteen while the age and shape of the girls to be burned was of less practical importance so the role went to the five who the three members of the Council who were making the selections considered to be the prettiest. 

The crowds were already starting to gather, eager for a good spot to enjoy the action, when Lucy’s mum woke her the next morning. Lucy was one of five children – three sisters and two brothers. But by that evening, only the brothers would remain. All three girls had dark red hair which had really caught the eye of the selection committee and, while Lucy burned inside the effigy, her older sister Laura, a curvy sixteen year old with full, round breasts and thick thighs, would roast and her cute, slightly chubby eight year old sister Rose would boil.

Rose was up already, Lucy could hear her as she sat up in bed and ate the light breakfast her mum had brought her as a treat for her final morning alive. Laura would be meeting them on the green as she and the other four roasters had opted to spend the night together, camping in the large garden of the laird’s house since his daughter Josephine was one of those selected. 

To be continued...


End file.
